Recorded from Mexico: Sinaloa, Jalisco, Michoacán, México, Hidalgo, Tlaxcala, Puebla, Veracruz, Guerrero, Oaxaca and Chiapas; Guatemala; Honduras; El Salvador and NW Nicaragua. The extent of occurrence and area of occupancy are both well in excess of the thresholds for any threatened category.

Pinus maximinoi is a species with a wide ecological amplitude, occurring from wet subtropical forest, where it is a gap pioneer, well up into the cooler cloud forests on high mountains in Mesoamerica. In Mexico it also occupies drier sites as a constituent of pine or oak-pine forest or woodland. Its altitudinal range is great: (450-)600-2,800 m, with an optimum at 900-1,800 m a.s.l. In the NW of its range the species occurs between 1,500-2,800 m. It occurs on a variety of soils under various climatic conditions; in Mesoamerica annual precipitation ranges from ca. 900-2,500 mm, with the wettest conditions on the Atlantic and Pacific slopes of the mountains. Under these conditions it occurs frequently with Pinus tecunumanii and Liquidambar styraciflua, at lower altitudes with P. oocarpa. In secondary broad-leaved forest other pines may join: P. devoniana, P. pseudostrobus, and pine woodland may prevail under a regime of grazing or burning, with the undergrowth dominated by grasses or the fern Pteridium aquilinum. In Central Mexico, it grows at the higher sites with Abies religiosa, P. ayacahuite, P. patula, P. pseudostrobus, P. douglasiana, and often Quercus in mixed pine or oak-pine forest, where precipitation is more moderate but the seasonal temperature range greater, with some frosts occurring in winter.

Thin-leaf Pine is an important timber tree in most of its range, where it is exploited with other tall growing pines. It has also been the subject of experimental forestry in various subtropical and tropical countries under programmes such as those initiated by the Central America & Mexico Coniferous Resources Cooperative (CAMCORE). The wood is relatively soft and light and easily worked and is used for construction (beams and planks), carpentry and joinery, crates, containers and boxes, woodware, tool handles, and matches, as well as various types of board, plywood and pulp. Thin-leaf pine is scarcely known in cultivation as an ornamental tree, but it has been imported as a forestry tree in Nepal as well as in southern Africa and in Colombia, mostly in the context of experimental tree breeding programmes with the objective of producing fast growing plantation trees for industry. These trials have as yet not led to large scale economic use.

This species has been recorded from several protected areas throughout its range. It has also been the subject of ex situ conservation, mainly from a forestry and utilization perspective (Dvorak and Dohanhue 1992).